


The Best Cheat

by Melian12



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Cheat Sheets, Exams, Humor, M/M, One Shot, Pre-Lord of The Rings, Pre-War of the Ring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 08:47:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11272032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melian12/pseuds/Melian12
Summary: Gimli loses a contest against Legolas and has to tell his friend an embarrassing story. One he hasn't told his friend yet: the story about his final exam.*about 110 years ago*Young Gimli is nervous about his upcoming finals. He is the top pupil in his fighting class, but unfortunately Fighting is only one of five exams he will have to do tomorrow. He hates Khûzdul literature, he is not extraordinary good at maths or mining, and in Westron he has never gotten a better grade than a D.But fortunately, on the evening before the exams, his mother wishes him good luck for the exams, and incidentally gives him a great idea how he might actually be able to deal with the exams tomorrow...





	The Best Cheat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IfIWouldDoThat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IfIWouldDoThat/gifts).



“You’ll never hit that mark!” 

“I will!”   

“Never!”   

“Will!”   

“Never!”

Legolas got a laughing fit. “Not that I doubt your skills with the axe, my love. But honestly, you’ll never hit a mark that is almost 100 feet away by throwing that heavy iron weapon. No offense, but… Never!”

Gimli just smiled at the blonde elf. “What if I do?”

Legolas grinned self-confidently. “Well, if you do, I’ll tell you one of the most embarrassing stories of my life. If you don’t, you’ll have to tell yours, deal?”

Gimli held out his hand. “Deal!”

 

The aim was, unfortunately, a flour bag on a wagon. And just the moment when Gimli let go of the axe and the weapon whirled through the air, the driver gave a signal to the horses and wagon moved. Of course, it went miles past the mark. “Sh*t! Legolas, that’s not fair!”

The elf doubled over with laughter. “Not fair, maybe. But hey, you owe me a story. And a good one, too!”

“And this was the exercise that got me through my finals,” the dwarf grumbled angrily. “I hit the mark three times, over 100 and over 150 feet! Otherwise I would have failed.”

The word ‘failed’ drew Legolas’ attention to the story. “What? You almost failed your final exams? But… how?”

Gimli gave a short snort and didn’t pay attention to his boyfriend, but sighed more to himself: “And I even had a cheat sheet! And the best one could think of, too.” He smiled, for a moment lost in memories.

Legolas hit his friend on the shoulder. “Come on, Gimli, this sounds like a story worth hearing.”

“All right, love, here you go. It all started in the night before the finals, and I was really, really desperate…”

 

* * *

 

 

Gimli sighed and pressed his fists against his forehead. The ink on his fingers left two big, black spots on his skin, but the young dwarf did not notice it. And had he noticed it, he wouldn't have cared. It was late, he was tired and his head was pounding. Not that he hadn't tried learning for his finals, of course he had! But there were so many things he had to know, in so many different subjects!

Math... well, he was not exactly bad at math, but not exactly very good either. It would have to suffice.

But math he would manage somehow, as well as mining. A dwarf that grew up in Belegost, one of the biggest mining town west of the Misty Mountains, knew some things about mining. There was nothing to understand, most of the facts you simply had to learn. And that was his problem: Gimli wasn't stupid, but not very diligent either. He was not really interested in mining and rather spent his free time in the training arena where he could practise with his axe.

Westron... well, he could only hope that this was the only exam he would fail, and that his grade at fighting would be good enough to compensate for it. Westron he had given up a year ago. That language wouldn't get into his head; the words sounded strange and he could never remember them, and the grammar was weird and totally different from Khûzdul. This language simply made no sense!

And Khûzdul wasn't much better. After all, who did really care about the ballads from the Second Age? Why did he have to analyse a poem that was more than 3,000 years old, about love and so horribly kitschy that one could hardly read a verse without dying of laughter. At least until their teacher had told them that just such a ballad would be their Khûzdul exam. The laughing had died at once. If only it were one of the many ballads about the ancient battles! They were far more interesting. And Gimli knew every tale about every battle by heart; if he had no clue what to analyse, at least he would get some credit for his background knowledge about the story it told.

But no use in dreaming about heroic battles now. He had to fight his own battle tomorrow, and it would be everything but heroic. By now, he was clutching at the last straw and hoping that tomorrow he would be able to remember the criterions of how to analyse one of these horrible ballads. It was unlikely because his brain was hardly able to concentrate anymore, but Mahal, it was a try. A desperate one, but he would not give up if there was still something he could do.

His eyelids were heavy, his head ached. When he was just about to give his attempt of learning a rest, somebody knocked at his door. "Enter," he sighed, but was surprised that the person entering was his mother. He had expected his father. Glóin was so proud of him and expected him to pass, of course, and worse, he was sure that his son  _would_ pass. Gimli, on the other hand, was almost sure that he would _not_ pass, which had made the situation at home a bit difficult during the last days. But his mother was a totally different matter.

"Mom! What do you want?"

His mother smiled at him. "I saw the light in your room and only wanted to wish you luck for your finals tomorrow, dear."

Gimli smiled back at her: "Thank you." Another sigh, then he finally dared to ask: "Do you honestly think I will pass?"

His mother saw the worries in her son's eyes. She went over to the desk and lovingly ruffled through his unruly red hair. "Darling, I know you aren't stupid. I also know you are a bit lazy sometimes, but you surely can do this. Of course you will pass." 

"What if I don't? Dad will never forgive me."

His mother laughed: "Oh, come on, Gimli, don't be stupid. Dad might be a bit angry at first, but he will eventually calm down. And then you will do the finals next year again, and that time you will surely pass. This wouldn't be the end of the world, you know? Two of my brothers had to retake the finals."

Gimli laughed now, too. "Surely Darin and Khuran, right?" When his mother nodded, he smiled at her. "So, it isn't that bad, is it?"

"No, dear, of course not. To me it doesn't matter how good your grades are, as long as you become a fine dwarrow and can earn a living from a decent job." She thought for a while, then added: "You know, my friends and I braided our hair and beards before the exams in order to wish us luck. We used some technique with long and short sequences and so braided some morse code blessings and short wishes for each other. It surely had nothing to do with it, but all of us did pass."

At this story, an idea began to form in Gimli's tired brain. He knows the technique, he knows the morse code, so why not try? He has nothing to lose, really.

"All right, dear, I'll leave you now to your studies. But go to bed soon, it doesn't help you if you fall asleep during your exam."  She kissed his forehead and left the room.

As soon as the door had closed, Gimli started to braid his beard and some strands of his hair. Math formulas, technical terms and some facts about mining and the most important rules for analysing one of these stupid ballads, even some of the horrible Westron vocabulary he should have learned. When he went to bed two hours later, he felt well-prepared and optimistic. He almost looked forward to his final exams in the morning.

 

* * *

 

 

"Valar, that's really awesome!" By now Legolas was crying with laughter. "I mean, to hide a cheat sheet in your beard, that's what everyone would have thought of. But to make a cheat sheet _out of_ your beard, I mean... just wow!"

Gimli grinned. "I only wished it had helped as much as I had needed it."

Abruptly, Legolas stopped laughing. "What? Why did it not work? What happened, Gimli?"

Gimli sighed. "It did work. Only, somehow too well..."

 

* * *

 

Gimli sat over the exam sheet and started to panic. He had finished Math without many problems; it should be enough to get a C. Mining was a bit worse, but some of his braids had proved to be quite helpful. The greatest advantage was that no one suspected anything when he tugged at his beard, apparently lost in thought, and wrote something down afterwards. But now he was facing his Khûzdul exam, and this did not go as expected.

Khûzdul was the subject he had worried about the most. The subject he had prepared the best. The subject with the most braids - and the most letters. The single morse letters were so close to each other that it was impossible for Gimli to tell where one letter stopped and another began. It was just a line of longer and shorter loops, only a few single characters he could decipher - which wasn't helpful at all. In despair, the dwarf stroked his beard again and again. Nothing for it. In desperation, he scrawled some basic facts he could remember from the lessons, he even _tried_ to analyse the ballad. 'This is worse than not being able to read one's own writing!' he thought when he submitted the almost empty sheet. 'Mahal, this is far worse!'

He had failed Khûzdul, he only could pray that he had passed Westron, and he was so terribly nervous that he almost failed the Fighting exam, too. "Gimli, what's the matter?" his teacher shouted at him. "You have never failed this exercise, not even in the first year! Come on, lad, get a grip on yourself!" Gimli managed to do all the exercises, even if most of them worked only at the third or fourth try. He knew he had everything to lose. And this, somehow, made it even harder to concentrate.

When the Fighting exam was over, the teacher took Gimli aside. "Boy, I know you are far better than what you showed today. Was it the nervousness?" Gimli dropped his gaze in shame and nodded. The older dwarf sighed. He knew this, many young dwarves failed their fighting exams every year, despite being good fighters. But Gimli was none of them; he knew the boy had nerves of iron. Something else was the matter. And he didn't want his best pupil since long go out of this exam with a C, only because he had some private problems.

"You know what, Gimli, my boy? I will give you a special task, one last test. It is a very difficult one, but I'm sure you can do it. If you manage to throw your axe over a distance of 100 as well as 150 feet and hit the mark on the other end of the arena, then you are worthy of your A. But only three tries for each, okay?"

Gimli saw his chance. He had done this before, he had trained it with his father for years. Without hesitation, he took the axe.

'Thump.' The weapon hit the mark at the first try. He didn't even wait for his teacher's comments, only ran right through the arena and took his axe again, then ran back to the 150-feet line. Gimli took a deep breath, concentrated and let his axe swirl.

'Thump.' A fine hit, right in the middle. Only now did he register that his fingers were shaking. He looked at his teacher. The old dwarf was smiling at him proudly. "Well done, lad. I knew you deserved it. Now go home, I think you are done here." With a twinkle he ruffled through Gimli's hair. "And, by the way, nice braids, boy."

Gimli blushed. "Yeah, well, something my mother told me about. Blessings and such."

"I know, my sons also did this for their exams." Another twinkle.

Did his teacher know about the cheat sheet? Gimli didn't care, at the moment he only wanted to go home. His exams were over, he only could hope that his trick had succeeded.

In the evening, his mother came to him to ask him about the finals. When she saw the braids in his beard, she wondered, but Gimli hugged her tightly and whispered: "Thanks, mom! Without you, I would certainly have failed." His mother stroked the braids in his beard and hair and smiled. 

 

* * *

 

 

Legolas shook his head. “Valar, you only passed your finals because you could throw your axe? You dwarves are strange.”

Gimli shrugged: “Not stranger than you elves are.” And quickly, he added: “And at least I threw my axe over 150 feet. You go ahead and try this before you judge me for it.”

Legolas smiled at him. “Fair enough. But what was the subject you failed?”

Gimli grinned: “Actually, it was Khûzdul. I indeed passed my Westron exam. Even my teacher was stunned!”

The elf laughed. “Well, this was my luck, I guess. If you had only spoken Khûzdul, we surely would never have come to know each other so well.”

He kissed Gimli’s lips and his hands got entangled in the dwarf’s impressive beard. ‘Maybe, I should braid him something else. Another Morse code,’ Legolas thought. ‘Something like _I love you_.’ Soon, all thoughts of final exams, ancient Khûzdul ballads and cheat sheets were forgotten.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this story arose when some friends and I discussed how one could best hide cheat sheets, and we got quite creative as you can see...  
> I hope you enjoyed the story  
> Feel free to leave comments/kudos/etc! :)


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